Over the past month I have visited most of the RCMP detachments in South Okanagan-West Kootenay.  While the conversations covered some of the obvious law and order issues such as marijuana legalization, rising levels of property crime and staffing levels for highway patrol, I was surprised that one issue dominated most of my...

To The Editor: More funding might help our seniors if they are in a publicly owned facility. A few more staff and maybe an extra therapist. But history shows that more funding has not improved the quality of care in "for profit" or even "non-profit" facilities. The taxpayers shelled out more money in 2010 when the client rate...

Last week I decided to write this column about income tax.  Not only is it tax time for all of us, but the KPMG tax scam story was in the news, and the Liberals had just voted with the NDP on our opposition day motion to rid Canada of tax measures that benefit only the very wealthy.

Health-care spending by provincial governments has increased by 116 per cent since 2001, and even though increases have slowed recently, health care is projected to consume an even larger portion of program spending over the next 15 years, according to a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.

This past weekend the Globe and Mail reported that lobbyists in the province have been making political donations on behalf of their clients, effectively camouflaging the identity of the real donors and breaking B.C.'s Elections Act in the process. On Sunday, Elections B.C. announced it was conducting an investigation into the Globe's findings. Five days later, the entire matter was referred to the RCMP.

In 2014-15, the Columbia River Treaty was on the brink of being the next big news story.  The first possible date for either country to give notice of termination (September 2014) passed.  Gradually, things went quiet.  The Treaty didn’t seem like news any more. Conversations about the Treaty have not stopped, however. They...

Dear Editor, Since 2001, tuition has increased annually for Selkirk College students.. Last year alone, the cost of attending Selkirk College from the year previous to the current academic year jumped 6.6 per cent. Last year, tuition fees were introduced for adult basic education, which are high school courses taken at the ...

If last year's provincial budget could be described as petty, after Finance minister Mike de Jong doled out an increase in assistance rates for those living with disabilities, only to claw must of it back by ending the subsidized bus pass program, this year's budget could best be described as petulant. This is de Jong's “I ...

To The Editor: The issue of problems with the quality of care in senior facilities has been widely reported in the last year which has been confirmed by the Senior Advocates Reports. As a result of these reports, the citizens of BC have been expecting some news of improvements concerning staffing levels, enforcement procedures...

Independent elementary schools in British Columbia continue to perform well above average, but this year more than 90 per cent of all elementary schools in the province that showed significant improvement are public, according to the Fraser Institute’s annual ranking of B.C. elementary schools released today.